The Christian’s duty to separate himself from the world is well illustrated in Pharaoh’s four subtle objections to the full deliverance of God’s ancient people from the land of Egypt. The first objection is expressed in his words to Moses:

1. “Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land [of Egypt]” (Exodus 8:25)

The object in this proposal of Pharaoh, doubtless instigated by Satan, was to hinder full obedience to the command of the Lord to separate entirely from Egypt and its evil, idolatrous influences. Egypt is very generally understood to represent the world. Deliverance from Egypt represents deliverance from this “present evil world” (Galatians 1:4). The tendency of professed Christians in defining what constitutes “the world” or worldliness is to place it a point or two lower than the standard they themselves have reached. God’s Word, however, defines it very explicitly and informs us that it is “all that is not of the Father” (1 John 2:16); hence the deeper our sense of fellowship with the Father, the keener will be our sense of what is worldly. The more we are enabled in the power of an ungrieved spirit to drink in Christ’s revelation of the Father, the more accurate does our judgment become as to what constitutes worldliness. It is most difficult to define where worldliness begins. One has said that it is shaded off gradually from black to white. It seems impossible to place a bound and say, “this is where worldliness begins”; but as the Christian walks close to the Lord, the keen sensibilities of his inner spiritual nature discern it. Possessing the power of the “new life” enables the individual Christian to mark the dividing line. Moses’ reply to Pharaoh was: “It is not meet so to do … We will go three days ‘journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as He shall command us” Exodus 8:26, 27

There seems to be illustrated in Moses’ reply what is meant by true separation from the world. The “three days’ journey into the wilderness” seems to represent what the death, and the resurrection of Christ three days after, signify to a true Christian believer, namely his identification with Him in His justification, and his identification with Him in His consecration, being quickened by the spirit of Truth, to walk in a new life of separation from sin and worldliness.

2.  Pharaoh’s reply, “I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only ye shalt not go very far away.”

If he could not keep them in Egypt, he would at least keep them near it, so that he might act upon them by its varied influences. In this way they might be brought back again, and the testimony more effectually quashed than if they had never left Egypt. There is always much more serious damage done to the cause of Christ by persons seeming to give up the world and returning to it again, than if they had remained entirely of it; for they virtually confess that, having tried heavenly things, they have discovered that earthly things are better and more satisfying.

3. The third objection of Pharaoh was to the Israelites taking their children when they should go to worship and sacrifice to God in the wilderness.

The lesson seems to be to spiritual Israel that they are required to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4), a lesson to which many Christians fail to take heed.

4. Pharaoh’s fourth objection was to their taking their flocks and herds.

Moses’ reply to this last attempt of Pharaoh to cause the Lord’s people to compromise is a grand illustration of how in consecration, the Lord requires not only that we give ourselves, but all that we have – all that we possess. “Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind” (Exodus 10:25-27). It is only when God’s people take their stand upon this elevated ground of entire consecration, on which by faith Christ’s death and resurrection places them, that they can have any clear sense of what the claims of consecration are. Moses’ words, “We know not with what we must serve the Lord, until we come thither” seem to teach that no one can have a knowledge of the Divine claim, or their responsibility, until they have, figuratively speaking, gone “three days’ journey into the wilderness” It is only then that we know that “we are not our own; we are bought with a price”

– R.E. Streeter “The Revelation of Jesus Christ”

“Go ye out from thence … be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.”
(Isaiah 52:11)

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